'Candelabra' recreates best of times, worst of times

Last night I watched “Behind the Candelabra,” a made-for-HBO biopic about Liberace and his seven-year romantic relationship with Scott Thorson, who was 40 years his junior. Based on the 1988 memoir by Thorson and co-writer Alex Thorliefson, the book was adapted to film by Steven Soderbergh to star Michael Douglas and Matt Damon. I was unable to watch it the night it premiered because I was too busy watching “Mad Men” and “Nurse Jackie,” two cable series that air on Sunday nights, which is, annoyingly, when all the great television happens.

Liberace, who was born in 1919, always seemed like a freak to me. The first time I saw him was on the Ed Sullivan Show in the 1960s. My mother was a big Liberace fan and eagerly tuned in whenever he appeared on any TV show, for whatever reason. (I should say here Geraldine was also in love with Charo, the singing star and wife of bandleader Xavier Cugat. The “cuchi-cuchi girl,” as she was known, was a sassy Latin sexpot/bimbo who, like Liberace, was completely flamboyant and over the top. In case you don’t remember Charo, there’s a great video of her on YouTube clowning around and dancing and singing with Dean Martin and Danny Thomas on the Dean Martin Show. “Modern Family” actress and Diet Pepsi pitchwoman Sofia Vergara, adorable as she is, is the watered-down version.)

But back to Liberace. Unlike my mother, I was not a fan. He annoyed me when he appeared in a cameo on “The Monkees” and later on an episode of “Batman” with Adam West in which he played a dual role as a concert pianist and his gangster twin. Embracing hippie culture as I did, I hated his sequined outfits and his capes and furs. His chest and hands covered in gold and diamonds looked cheesy and tasteless, while his stage presence and campiness struck me as offensive. I couldn’t watch the few times he appeared on Saturday Night Live. By then I was repulsed merely at the sound of his name, which I associated with all things phony. By the ’80s my main issue with Liberace was his refusal to acknowledge what was obvious to me, that he was a gay man. His refusal to be open about his sexual orientation seemed an insult to all the brave and out gay men I’d met in college and later working in the city who were dying of AIDS.

Right up until his death in February 1987, my mother was one of the legions of Liberace fans who believed the love of his life was Sonja Henie. My mother went to her grave herself a few months later, still believing. In the days following his death, a scandal erupted when the Riverside County coroner refuted Liberace’s physician’s report that the performer had died of heart disease, instead ordering an autopsy based on tissue samples taken from the embalmed body, which told a different story entirely: Liberace had died of complications from HIV. When the news broke, I remember my mother throwing a mini-tantrum, asking why anyone felt the need to besmirch the star’s reputation.

On Facebook, after the airing of the HBO biopic, I posed a question on my forum. I say “my forum” jokingly because, as everyone knows, FB is just one giant forum. My old writer friend Cindy from our mutual 1980s magazine days pronounced Matt Damon’s performance as Scott Thorson “brilliant” and Michael Douglas “surprisingly good in a tough role.” As did several other FB friends, Cindy loved Debbie Reynolds’ depiction of Liberace’s mother. I personally loved Rob Lowe as Dr. Jack Startz, the celebrity doctor who got Thorson started on his addiction to diet pills and other amphetamines, setting the young man on a crash course. Lowe plays Dr. Startz as a stunning dissolute in an Emmy-worthy performance.

“Behind the Candalabra” is a film one can’t soon forget. I remarked on Facebook that I really wished some of my gay friends would weigh in with their comments. For me and other heterosexuals to comment intelligently on a gay relationship that happened 35 years ago seems kind of absurd. The ’70s were heady times for everyone, especially in places like New York, Las Vegas, L.A. and San Francisco. It was the beginning of the great Coming Out. But Liberace thought it would be professional suicide to tell the truth about himself, and Thorson, who at 22 was at the forefront of a new generation, was willing to risk everything for love. Thorson was Liberace’s victim — that’s my takeaway. 

Maid of Honor or Maid of Drama

My son’s lovely girlfriend is a bridesmaid in a wedding this summer. Actually she’s more than a bridesmaid; she’s the maid of honor. Being asked to be in someone’s wedding party is supposed to be an honor, but in reality it’s always filled drama and mounting expenditures.

While attempting to give my son’s girlfriend counsel on the latest bridesmaid clash, I recalled I was a bridesmaid – not once, but four times. My freshman year at college, I was in the wedding party of Candy, a high school friend. While still in college, I was in the weddings of Beth and Carol Ann, two of my college friends. A couple of years out of grad school, I was in Amanda’s wedding. Of the four marriages, only Carol Ann’s made it.  

Depending how you feel about chick flicks and graphic body functions, you either love the movie Bridesmaid’s or you dislike it. Like everybody else, I laughed at the food poisoning scene, but overall felt bad because of all the old rotten memories the film dredged up for me.

Candy’s wedding, and I’ve changed all the brides names here for libel’s sake, was a big bawdy affair held at a popular catering hall in South Jersey. The bride’s father, now deceased, was a celebrity. He was a professional wrestler and later an actor who appeared in David Lee Roth music videos. When Candy was getting married, her dad was a big pro wrestling star. The wedding of his eldest daughter, who was all of 19, was meant to be a showcase. Because I was away at college, I missed the big pow wow at the bridal salon, and had to wear a dress they all picked without me. I completely missed the bachelorette party which took place during exam week, which made the bride upset.  At the wedding, I had to walk down the aisle with the jerkiest and most despicable of the groom’s men, and sit beside him at the wedding party table while he spent the whole evening trying to stick his hand up my dress.

For Beth’s wedding, which took place on a beach on a beach in Cape Cod, as to not upstage the bride, we were told to wear sun dresses and flip flops. Beth and her fiancé fought like cats and dogs; on the afternoon of the wedding, she marched towards the altar with her tiny hands clenched in fists. During the ceremony, one of the groom’s best friends, already inebriated, threw up. Beth’s mother, who was against the marriage, cried noisily from the start.

Carol Ann’s wedding was an eye opener because of her religion. Her family and the groom’s were Salvation Army. Until I met Carol Ann, I thought the Salvation Army to be a band of bell ringers for charity; I didn’t yet understand the organization to be a Christian denomination whose thrust and focus is offering salvation to the poor, the destitute, and the hungry. Their theology is mainstream Methodist, although the Army has its own distinctive practices. Carol Ann’s wedding was proscribed going in. There was no conversation regarding what the wedding party would wear. Someone in the Army made our dresses; hooded, voluminous, long sleeved slate blue tunics that dropped to the floor, tied at the waist with braided rope. And I do mean rope. It was hemp. The dress was really hard to walk in, as there weren’t even side slits. Another bridesmaid joked we looked like monks. There was no liquor at the wedding which peeved me since I’d just turned 21, and no dancing either. The Salvation Army band played songs, but they were all hymns.

Amanda’s wedding in San Francisco was a class act. The wedding was held in The Sir Francis Drake Hotel, which is gorgeous. Because I was working in New York City slaving away at a magazine, once again I missed out on the dress selection and most of the fittings. Three days before the wedding, I flew out to the coast to be immersed in a whirlwind of pre-wedding activities, including an outing to Fisherman’s Wharf. We also had tea at The Ritz and rode a cable car. In between manicure and hair appointments, I was given the job of individually wrapping 250 handmade chocolate truffles to be used as place settings, and bullying Amanda’s cleaning person into ironing Amanda’s honeymoon wardrobe and packing it. The woman, who clearly disliked Amanda, was loath to do it. Amanda yelled at me. “Evie,” she said. “You just don’t know how to talk to servants.”

The piece de resistance to being in Amanda’s wedding was the expensive, ugly bridesmaid’s dress, which was apricot silk with puffed sleeves and a high neck. In 1982, it cost me over $500. At the reception afterwards, I inadvertently let it slip to Amanda’s very WASP-y new sister- in-law a piece of information of which the family was not aware. “Amanda is Jewish?” she said. “How curious. She never said a word.” I was so freaked out by this exchange that my stomach turned to knots. The minute the reception was over, I rushed upstairs to my hotel room and tore off the dress, which I deposited in the trash. In the morning I was on the first flight out. Amanda and I didn’t speak again until a few years later when she told me she was divorcing.

Let that be a lesson to all you future bridesmaids. Being in a wedding sounds fun. Until it isn’t.